Dealing the cards was... meditative. Calming.

Prince Gwyr and his friends would not suspect that I was not really playing to win the small wagers we had at stake that morning, or care much for my reputation in the game.

Cards dealt, I looked at what I got, trying to find the answers to last night's questions in the random geometry of chance.

I knew the meanings of the cards:

The arrows, representing the horns of the unicorns.
The check-marks for pegasi wings.
The horseshoes for the earth pony hooves…

The probabilities and odds lined up in my mind and the first turns of this round were taken, but the state of the cards did not answer the question that I came here for.

“Go Fish!” Gwyr declared in response to his opponents’ assault on his cards. The turn changed.

“I’ve heard—” I finally broached the topic I was gearing up to, “That the elder Prince wishes to speak at the convocation this week.”

Gwyr’s expression stayed carefully neutral, but his eyes were sharp when he looked at me from beneath his black crest.

That was encouraging. After yesterday's talk with the Count, I almost believed him, but I needed more proof before I would act. Prince Gwyr's role in that talk I overheard gave me hope that he would be the griffon to approach - and it seems I was not wrong. I pressed on before it would be my turn to play.

"And with the Northern Winds already gathering to the West," I continued, "one wonders what he would talk of—” I rearranged my cards in my hoof, “—and if his motion would be popular in Griffonstone."

"My brother’s fancies are not something all the griffons support.” He shrugged, and took his turn, stealing two Suns off the griffon to his left. “Nor are they an idea the King my father would approve of.”

"The Prince's moods are as shifting as the winds he commands," the griffon to Gwyr's right said, gesturing with his wing.

"Yet the wind can whittle even the tallest mountain," the griffon on Gwyr's left argued, studying the cards in his claw.

"But the King's will always remains."

"The King's will always remains fulfilled," the Prince said forcefully, the wave of his wing ending their argument.

“Of course, sire,” the left griffon said, bowing his head.

“We never meant to imply anything else,” the other added, returning to his cards.

"I did try to change my brother’s mind, Lady. Trust me." The Prince made his turn and stacked the trick he’d won neatly on the table. "But what can we do?" He spoke lightly, but there was bitterness hidden underneath the levity. "He's the heir apparent, the wonder-griffon, ‘El Matador del Toros’. What he wants - he gets."

I demanded sevens from the griffon to my right, and got them, finishing the trick. “And is Equestria to pick up the tab for Griffonstone’s diversions?”

"My brother is always magnanimous in his victory. You have nothing to fear."

"But what if he loses?" I asked.

His face darkened, and for a second the flow of the game was broken as everygriffon looked at me. The Prince nodded, a barely noticeable bob of his black crest, and the griffon's voice broke the awkward silence as we returned to the game.

No more politics were discussed, and we only interrupted the game with some polite small talk, until the last of the round was over, and the tally was calculated. I scored a rather respectable second place, despite the distraction of the talk.

"I'm afraid I don't have the money to pay right now, Lady," the Prince said, blithely ignoring the small pile of silver by his side. "Perhaps you could accompany me to my study? I'd be happy to settle it there."

He released two other players with a wave of a wing, leaving them to pick up the cards and settle the rest of the score, and gestured for me to follow him upstairs. The entrance to his study was located on the ceiling with the classic Griffon disdain to anything without wings. I was figuring out a way of getting up there, when the Prince pushed on an invisible knob in the wall, opening a small door.

"Servant's passage." The obvious ‘Since you don't fly’ was tactfully omitted in an awkward pause. “For the dogs and children. They’re everywhere — even I don’t know all of them.”

Gwyr, I noted, did not take the servant's way. With a flap of wings he disappeared inside his room, leaving me to ascend the small spiral staircase behind the door.

The Prince himself was absent, apparently already disappeared away into one of the smaller rooms, so I had a bit of time to look around his study.

To my surprise, his study was much like my own, though much neater. Every inch of wall was covered by shelves and glass cabinets, each filled to the brim with neatly organised books and scrolls. The glass cupboards were full of alchemical and chemical supplies, carefully labelled — alder and rowan, cinnabar and red mercury, ash and black bramble’s thorns: nothing quite as arcane or risque as my own little collection of course, but a girl could do a lot with those supplies if push came to shove.

The middle of the room was dominated by a giant table, large enough for at least half a dozen birds, occupied by several piles of papers and books. Law, politics, chemistry and even magic seemed to be the Prince's occupations.

"There it is. We are settled now, I believe." The Prince returned, dropping a purse heavy with silver on the table.

I tied it around my neck — a small change for a prince was a rather nice addition to spending money for me. But I did not just come for the money and both of us understood that.

He clicked his beak, coming finally to a decision. "In response to your question, Lady — with convocation’s blessing, the Prince my brother, would take the Griffon army and lead the Northern winds in a war upon Equestria.”

The war! I felt chills run along my spine at the sound of the word. So the Count was right.

"It's the power you see, the power and that damn Griffon pride. He has always been strong and fast but since he has taken the power of the Idol there is nothing to challenge him in Griffonstone. Now El Matador del Toros wishes to challenge the original Bull-Slayer, to throw his power against that of the Princess of the Sun. And that is a challenge I’m afraid even he cannot win."

"Can’t you stop him, your Highness? You're a prince as well, you must have the same power."

"I do not! I can not, not ever!" His claw jerked up reflexively, cutting the air in a gesture of protection against my words. "The power — in politics just as with the winds —- is majorat. Only the King and the heir apparent, once he comes of age, have it. Just the talk of anything else could be considered High Treason.” He waved his wing apologetically.

"Oh," the way he said it so forcefully struck me as wrong somehow. I must've said something really wrong. "How can I help?"

"I'm at my wit's end, Lady Shimmer," Gwyr said, desperation creeping into his voice. "I try to dissuade my brother, but I cannot act against him directly — Gideon does not take well to treason, even if it is to save him from his own folly. He’s going to summon the convocation, he’s going to get them on his side and there is nothing I can do by myself to stop him.”

"What is the convocation?" I asked. "I've heard the word tossed about but..."

He looked at me curiously, as if not quite sure if I was asking a question. "Oh, right," finally he figured it out. "You don't know quite as much of our affairs. Pardon me, it's sometimes hard to understand ponies, without the wings."

I chalked it up to another thing I didn't understand but asked no question — it was hardly the most important thing now.

"We griffons don't quite have the perfect government of Equestria. The King is the ruler, yes, but he is held in balance, held in check in case he does something that is not wise, or, as the case may be, according to my brother — fails to act."

Checks and balances against the power of the King. That did sound... uncivilized. But inevitable, I guessed, for a nation that did not have a proper Princess to guide them.

“The convocation, if there are enough eagles in it, has the power to stand against the power of the King.“

"And that's what your brother seeks to do?"

"Aye. He shall gather the eagles to make his case and rouse them from what he thinks of deadly slumber. Should he succeed, there is no way to stop him — we griffons are proud creatures, and once the vote is cast, the word of the griffon is as immovable as the mountains themselves. Come eternal winter or endless night, as they have decided, so shall it be."

"Well, that gives us a deadline." I shook my mane, "I can work deadlines. When?"

“In three days time, my brother shall talk to the convocation. There he shall present this to the eagles.” He put a parchment on a table. "Just a copy I'm afraid. My brother has the original."

I grabbed it, scanning past the meticulously copied old Equestrian, the ornate names and the flowery expressions of eternal friendship, reproduced in Prince's sharp claw-writing.

‘We, King Grover the First, in the eternal alliance.. allow borrowing this land… to Princess Celestia and her little ponies...a lien of our friendship and brotherhood between our species, to be repaid....’

"This is impossible.” I threw it back on the table. “It's a joke, right?"

"I wish. If only that were true, all this silliness my brother has planned could be avoided. Unfortunately, it's very real." The Prince opened both his wings to the sides. "I've seen it myself."

"How do you even know it's the real deal? It could be nothing more than a trick."

“There is the writing. The language is accurate and it matches the claw-... pardon, the hoof-writing in the other documents”

“It could have been forged,” I countered

“Equestrian parchments, watermarked with Royal colours.”

“Stolen.”

“Celestia's own seal!”

“Imitated.”

“A signature!”

“Faked!”

“Her power can still felt in the page.”

I shut up. The Power of the Princess, the tracery of her — not just her magic, but the very thing that made her the Princess — it couldn’t be faked any more than the sunrise could be.

This document, if it existed, was not a forgery, not a fake, not a clever trick or an inept ploy. It was the real deal — my Princess has indeed bought Equestria from a Griffon King on a loan. And that loan has really run out.

"Would your Princess honour that deal? Would she yield most of Equestria to Griffonstone?"

I considered it, thinking of the map I saw in arimaspi’s room. The lands that according to this... thing, now would belong to Griffons went all the way to Canterlot. Manehattan, Cloudsdale, Baltimare. At least a million ponies.

"No." My Princess would absolutely honour her word, and she would not even think of starting a war over it, but I gave the only answer a daughter of a Baltimare pegasus could give: "Molon Labe," I said, almost feeling the wings unfurl at my back in defiance, and beastly snarl twisting up my face. "Come and get it if you dare."

"Aye." Gwyr nodded sadly. "So I have thought. So does my brother. And that is why this madness must be stopped before it happens."

First I would have to re-trace Gwyr's steps. Not that I doubted his word — he had no reason to lie to me — but the library was as good a place to start my investigation as any. He said that he had found the scroll there, and perhaps I’d be able to find some clue or more information there.

The library greeted me with silence and the smell of mildew and dust. Nothing stirred there, except for the cold, drafty breeze seeping through the cracks in the windows, and a sole griffon, huddled behind a far table, semi-hidden behind half-filled bookcases. He flinched, ducking down when he heard the door bang against the wall, but the momentary expression of fear disappeared when he saw me.

"Lady!" Galad jumped up, waving his wing, the tip of the feather almost touching the floor, "I should've expected a unicorn to visit our library. Please, come in."

I grabbed the library catalogue and dropped next to the princeling, who had made a room for me on his desk.

It took me little time to find the catalogue entirely useless. Half the entries were missing, the rest - either wholly inaccurate, referencing parts of the library that no longer seemed to exist, or would point me to bookshelves long since voided of their content.

"Haven't they heard of Dewey Decimal?" I grumbled, after another fruitless trip that brought nothing but cobwebs and enough dust to cover half the Canterlot. “This is impossible!”

"This is Griffonstone," the Prince shrugged. "Not many eagles like to spend their time with the papers and the parchments, cooped up in closed spaces. Gwyr tried to make renovations, but he never had the time to do anything serious with it."

"And what does the prince of Griffonstone do in a place not deemed fit for griffons?”

“I come here often,” he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “To be away from... he waved vaguely at everything outside the walls of the library. “...them.”

“To do what?” I peeked over his claw, spying into his notes.

...
But when recovering I realise
The cheat and from the mob my dim dream flies
A prisoner escaped from gilded cage
Oh how I long their petty fights disperse
And in their beak to fling an iron verse,
Red-hot...

"Don't look!" He covered the parchment quickly with his wing. "I-It's not ready yet."

"It's quite good," I assured him. I was not well-versed in poetry but his foalish verse did speak to me. I could just imagine finding the right words to throw into the faces of those self-important nobleponies, to break the teeth of Strawberry Leaf with a heavy iron... verse flung into her smug snout. “I like it.”

"Oh..." he settled down, still hesitant. "I didn't think... but of course, you're an Equestrian little pony, a unicorn. You would understand." He clicked his beak, his cheeks glowing pink from the compliment, and his wings shifted again. “But what about you? Canterlot libraries are surely better kept and far richer than this old place.”

"Your brother got a hold of a fairly dangerous document. So I'm trying to track it to where it came from, see if there's something else there he may have missed."

"You mean that ancient parchment Gwyr dug out?" the Prince broke away from his writing for a second. "He got it from King Grover's wing."

I froze, turning to the princeling.

"You knew?!"

"About that paper that got Gid all riled up with his grand plans? Well, yes."

"How long have you known?"

"Forever. Everyone ignores me - I'm not strong like Gid or smart like Gwyr. I'm just a kid, the least of the Princes. But I'm not stupid. I know things."

"Why haven't you told me?" I demanded.

"I didn't think it was important," he shrugged. "It's just some dumb political thing between Gideon and Dad."

I closed my eyes.

ugly stump where his head was, spurting blood into the cold, empty air,

He was just a boy.

Thousands of nightmare-inducing vignettes of violence around me, and the ground so overflowing with blood it would not drink any more.

He had no idea. He couldn’t have known what a war could mean. All he ever knew was the stories, like the story I've been telling last evening. And even I was willing to dismiss it up until yesterday.

He touched his neck, where the arrow struck him and he smiled, even knowing he was already dead.

I breathed. In and out, washing out the fear and the longing in one long breath.

“I hate it when they argue,” he added with a childishly sulking tone. “They're both so... griffish." He inflected his wing. "I wish they could get along. One of these days one of them will do something they will both regret and then..." his wing fell down. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bore you with our family squabbles.”

"Not at all." I opened my eyes and smiled. A corpse awakened from the thousand-year slumber would have had more life in its voice. "I'm sure it won't come to anything."

I needed something; a drink, a sniff, anything to calm down. I stood up, pushing the table away.

"If I have somehow offended," the princeling started—

"Oh no, not at all." I lied, "I just need to pick up some books."

By the bookshelves I breathed again, trying to expel the sudden flash of anger, and reached for the snuffbox. A burn ran up my nose, a flash of clarity taking the edge off, and I felt better. The Count was right, this stuff was good.

I took my time, waiting for the burning in my sinuses to stop and letting the familiar musty smell of old books and dust finish what the snuff couldn’t, and then I came back, stopping when I heard the sounds of Griffonstonian language — a clowder of them, heckling and laughing, from back where I left the prince.

I stepped lighter, making no sound against the floor, and peeked.

Lord Graven hung over the Prince, who tried desperately to protect his precious notes with his wing. His voice seemed jovial and hardly threatening, but there was nothing harmless in how Lord Graven's claws dug into the kid's feathers, or how his mate snuck around, snatching the prince's notes.

"H-hey! Give it back!"

"Oh but your Highness you mustn't be angry with us!" they giggled like a pack of hyenas. "It's just harmless fun, eh?"

The griffon threw it over his head to another one of their pack.

"It's no place for a griffon, playing with papers and ink, my lord." A jerk on the shoulder, sharp and sudden, threw the prince against the floor, dragging him. "Come with us, there are bulls to fight!"

I stepped out of the bookshelf into the open. "Now you shouldn't run in the library, my lords." There must've been something in my tone, because they stopped instantly to look at me, frozen like rabbits caught in the headlights. "We wouldn't want you to bump into something," I stepped towards Lord Graven. "Or someone."

His friends stepped back, leaving him alone, but Graven stood his ground. The pride, artificial as it was, fortified him against me.

I looked him in the eyes.

And there it was, a glimpse of a memory, a reflection of the fear at the bottom of his eyes. He remembered being helpless. Powerless. Feeling that I could do anything to him, without any proportion to the reason or provocation and nopony could stop me if I chose to do it again — no power in the world could ever erase it completely.

A shiver, a spasm ran along his barrel. His wings lowered by an inch, then flew back up, as he tried to fight the fear, his face flushed with anger.

I stepped forward.

He was a brave griffon and fancied himself a predator, but he wasn’t a killer. Oh, he’d enjoy a good fight, and he was not quite as afraid of hurting someone as a little pony would be. But he wouldn’t slice somepony's throat and step over her twitching body while the hot blood spurted on the ground.

I would. And these days it wouldn’t bother me much. In fact, after being shut in the Canterlot Castle for over two months, with only a tease of our previous scrap to whet my appetite, now I craved it, craved the edge and the fight. If only he'd give me a provocation, an excuse, and I would kill him in an instant with no hesitation. No Kings, no lords, and no castles would stop me.

I stepped forward.

He tried to say something, his dry throat spasming soundlessly, gulping for air. And then he stepped back averting his eyes, his wings falling back and then retreated fully, his hapless little bully friends following.

I exhaled, watching the griffons retreat, forcing myself to breathe out the excitement of the almost-fight, half-wishing the griffon had tried something, given me that excuse. But the breathing and the Count’s potion were already doing their work, and I felt a bit more at ease now, having taken my anger on a convenient target.

"They're just kidding around," the Prince said, dusting off his shoulders and picking up his notes. "I think. That's what Gid keeps telling me." He sighed. "I don't much care for their jokes. Thank you, Lady. I wish I could repay you."

Kidding around.

Right.

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah." I shook my head, trying to shake out the last angry thoughts. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

"What?" Took me a moment to remember what he was talking about. "Oh. No. I can't make heads or tails of this library. Nothing is in order here."

"Well maybe I can help." the tercel fluttered up. “I’d be happy to!”

“Actually,” I considered it, “now that you mention it…”

“Yes?”

“I’m entirely lost in this place,” I admitted. ”And since you’re here often, I thought perhaps you could help me track where the scroll I’m looking for came from?”

“Oh, sure thing.” he waved his wing dismissively, “It’s pretty easy - the historical section is over there, and it’s all sorted by dynasty, and King and stuff. That’s what Gwyr says, at least. Which one are you looking for?”

"The paper that I’m trying to find was signed by King Grover.” I remembered the parchment that Gwyr had shown me, the reproduced signs and seals at the bottom, “King Grover and Prince Gruntwing."

He fluffed his feathers, turning his head to the side. "There's no Prince Gruntwing in the stories," he said. "And I know my stories."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course!" his wing shot out. "King Grover only ever had one son, Prince Gvido. The only Griffon to run the Gauntlet of—"

"Wait, what if it's not a Griffon king?" I paced along the shelves, thinking furiously. "Treaties can have a third party signing on it, called upon to enforce it if there's a dispute. Who could be the witness to the deal between Equestria and King Grover?"

"Well..." He thought for a while. "It must've been after the taking of Geskleithron—"

"Yes!" I grabbed a parchment and started sketching out the map I saw from the arimaspi's cabinet. "It's not dragons or hippogriffs — they all came later. The desert has no king, no Powers and no Princes or Princesses. No one would summon them to witness a parking ticket, much less an agreement that important. And that leaves... Yaks?"

“They were between us and the old Equestria,” the Prince agreed from behind my shoulder. “It would make sense to ask them to witness a deal. The yak-griffon-equestrian archive would be over there.”

The Princeling hopped into the air and flew off, weaving through the maze of the library cases, and I scrambled after him.

"Well, there definitely was something," he pointed to a neat square spot in the middle of the dusty shelves, soon as I arrived. "But it's not there any more."

Ok. I tried to suppress my disappointment. I knew that. The Prince probably kept the scroll with him, or perhaps the creature did.

"But there's another one here!"

"What?"

"Yeah, see?" He floated up, grabbing a lacquered black box in his claws. "But it's empty."

"Are you sure it's the right box?"

"Uh-huh", the princeling nodded eagerly. "See - King Grover's reign, griffon-yak-equestrian treaty archive, just before King Gruntwing's age. And of course, it's always the age of Princess Celestia in Equestria, so nowhere else it could be."

"Gimme that." I reached for the box with my magic, and the eaglet obediently let me take it. A lacquered black thing still bearing the three royal seals, barely the size of a breadbox. It would've contained a few scrolls at most, and it was very much empty. I sniffed at the wood carefully.

There was an air about it — the sunshine and the daffodils. Celestia's smell, an imprint of her power shed off the scroll kept inside the box for more than a millennium, a sharp sense of griffon claws. But also something else that didn't belong: a smell of fresh wood. The box was ancient, but... I probed it carefully with my hooves until I found a give, and a fake cover slid from the inside of the lid.

"Huh."

"That's cool," the Princeling watched my manipulations over my shoulders. "We found a secret!"

"Yeah. Except there's nothing there." The wood behind the fake inside of the lid was as smooth as the cover, though perhaps more polished by the ages.

"Well, there's that spell. It's probably important. A weird one too - it does not look like your magic at all."

"Wait, there's a spell? How do you know?"

"Isn't it obv... oh." he lowered his wings. "I can just see it — griffon eyes are very sharp. Better than pony ones," he sounded almost apologetic. "Sorry, I didn't mean..."

I suppressed a sigh. Why was nature so cruel to unicorns? For all the things I learned and did to myself, I would still have to use the testing-spells and study backscatter and the interference of my magic against it to figure out what it did and how it was made. For complex spells it could take days, poking and prodding and measuring... and he could just see it, as plain as a snout on my face, even if he lacked the knowledge to understand what it was.

"Can you show me what it looks like?"

"Well, it's harder to see when it's inside something, but it's sort of..." he shuffled his wing. "There aren't good words in Equestrian to explain what a spell looks like. But if you trace where it's roots are, then, well, it's sort of like this—"

I followed his claw with my magic, and when I lifted my horn, an image — a hieroglyph, crude and ugly grew alight on the inner side of the lid. A rough depiction of an eye, brownish-red when coloured by my magic as if drawn with blood.

“Ice and Nightmares!” I threw the box away.

It did not take knowledge of Coltec magic to know that this was a spy-spell, and who had left it. And who, no doubt, was seeing me opening that box right now.

No slave unto the world’s opinion,
I do not kneel before the great;
Like you, I think their cause unworthy
My heart’s devotion or my hate.

Like you, I share not the noisy pleasures.
And know them not as souls apart:
I take alike the wise and foolish
And keep the mandate of my heart.

Galad, Prince of Griffonstone
Drafts
Currentl Location Unknown, believed to be lost.